Cleveland Browns Owners To Season-Ticket Holders: “You Deserve Better”

In the wide world of sports, there are slumps and losing streaks, and then there are entire seasons that fans may wish never happened in the first place. Like the Cleveland Browns, who put up a dismal 1-15 showing in the National Football League’s 2016 season, prompting the team’s owners to send season ticket-holders an apology letter.

Jimmy and Dee Haslam stood by their management team in the letter, noting that their confidence in our leadership’s character, attitude, approach and ability remains strong,” the letter, which was released by the team, reads.

But yeah, this was not a good season for the long-suffering Browns fans: the Browns lost their first 14 games before finally beating the San Diego Chargers 20-17 on Dec. 24. They ended the season with an overtime loss of 24-27 to the Pittsburgh Steelers.

“Clearly this season has been a painful part of our building process,” the Haslams wrote. “You deserve the best, and you certainly deserve better than a 1-15 team.”

The Haslams acknowledge how critical the offseason will be, claiming that the team is positioned well to add “quality players” in the upcoming draft.

“We remain committed and determined to rewarding you with the consistent winning team you deserve. We will continue to do all we can to reach that goal,” the letter concludes, thanking ticket holders for their support.

Here’s the full letter:

With the close of the 2016 season, we wanted to thank you again for all of your support and apologize for such a disappointing year.

We greatly appreciate the tremendous passion and loyalty of Browns fans, and it is a difficult season like this that shows how truly fortunate we are to have such support. We fully recognize how tough this season has been for you, and we want to let you know it has been equally hard for us. We are extremely grateful for your support and do not take it for granted.

Clearly, this season has been a painful part of our building process. You deserve the best, and you certainly deserve better than a 1-15 team. We are sorry that our results have not been better.

Immediately following last season, we communicated our commitment to bringing in strong, smart leaders with high character, who would be relentlessly driven to improve our football team and look at every resource possible. We continue to feel very good about the leaders we have in place – Coach Hue Jackson, Sashi Brown, and Paul DePodesta – and how they have approached their individual roles, while working extremely well together, all with the sole interest of creating a consistent winning football team for you, the fans. While we obviously did not accomplish that this season, our confidence in our leadership’s character, attitude, approach and ability remains strong as we faced this year’s challenges.

We understand the critical nature of this upcoming offseason as we continue to improve our roster. Our personnel group has positioned us very well to add quality players through multiple high draft picks while maintaining salary cap flexibility and the ability to sign and retain our core nucleus of players.

We remain committed and determined to rewarding you with the consistent winning team you deserve. We will continue to do all we can to reach that goal.

Thank you for your support.

Dee and Jimmy Haslam

(h/t ESPN)